The relentless, disproportionate attacks on the ABC usually receive little pushback from the ABC. Presenters hold their tongues, perhaps reporting what was said but usually refraining from full-throated rebuttal. That changed last week with the astonishing suggestion by Quadrant online editor Roger Franklin – in an attempt at satire, presumably – that had there been “a shred of justice” the Manchester bomber would have blown up the Q&A studio instead because, you know, the ABC excuses terrorism or denies its seriousness.

The basis for Franklin’s fury was that a Q&A guest, physicist Lawrence Krauss, said that Americans are more likely to die from a fridge falling on them than in a terrorist attack.

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Jon Faine, morning presenter for ABC radio in Melbourne, said that for years, he had ignored attacks on the ABC, “but quite frankly this morning I’ve finally decided, I’ve had enough of it, I’m sick of it”.

To have people threatening violence, or encouraging violence ... I’ve got text messages (saying) and this is the point, ‘if a Muslim publication suggested a bomb be put in a public facility, can you imagine the outcry, the police investigation ... the armed terror squad raids descending? Why should a rightwing conservative magazine be any different’, and I couldn’t agree more.

News Corp would, he continued,

quite like Melbourne to be a one paper town, they’d quite like to silence the ABC, to get it out of the way for them basically having unfettered media control over not just Melbourne but the whole of Australia. I don’t know if that an exaggeration, it’s certainly the way they are conducting their public campaign.

Afternoon presenter Rafael Epstein was also riled.

They’ve almost written a book on Yassmin Abdel-Magied, there have been 60,000 words written in the Australian media about Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s Facebook post on Anzac Day. Will there be a similar outcry, should there be a similar outcry, when someone on the Quadrant website effectively encourages the bombing of the ABC studio because he doesn’t like what he sees and hears on Q&A?

These reasonable points are unlikely to stem the obsessive focus on the ABC by a handful of conservative politicians and commentators, mostly at the Australian newspaper, but they do go to the heart of our diseased culture wars – how they drip with hypocrisy and selective outrage, how dishonest they are. More importantly, how they stymie debate on vital issues.

It is our national broadcaster that bears the brunt of a fixation that knows no limits, the primary purpose being to discredit and damage the ABC. The tactic of treating any statement that doesn’t accord with their world view as reason for hysteria is working. It is a time-worn strategy – throw mud, lots of it, all the time. If the criticism is justified, ramp it up. If the criticism is not justified, ramp it up anyhow. Create a sense of perpetual “crisis” and eventually, it will come.

Consider these contributions just in the last few days when even the professional ABC haters might have paused for breath, to reflect a little. Andrew Bolt at first called Franklin “magnificent in his anger at this Q&Asophistry,” expressed surprise that anyone would take this “satire” seriously, then backed away a little.

The Australian’s Chris Kenny acknowledged that Franklin’s suggestion to blow up an ABC studio “went way too far”, but mostly he wanted to say how understandable was the author’s anger because “pointing out the jihad denialism on the ABC is an important part of the national debate”.

Some routine ABC critics like Nick Cater were more unequivocal in their condemnation of Franklin’s diatribe – and Quadrant did apologise eventually – but Epstein’s underlying point that the outrage of those fixated with the ABC was selective and ideological was born out.

The real target, of course, was never Abdel-Magied, who was naïve or brave enough to write in a private Facebook post that on Anzac Day, perhaps we should also remember Manus, Nauru, Syria and Palestine, a post she quickly deleted and apologised for. The real attack wasn’t on Krauss, either. The target is the ABC, which is bizarrely judged to subscribe to the views of its guests and contributors.

An Australian editorial stated that the broadcaster has a “tendency to sugar-coat the cruel realities of radical political Islamism, even to the point of jihad denialism”. Gary Johns in his regular column suggested that “perhaps ABC really stands for Allah Before Christ”. Maybe the government should sell it, he said, the favourite punchline for the ABC’s enemies.

Faine named what this is really all about:

At the very core of it seems to be this absolute ridiculous notion that because one talks to mainstream Muslims who are living successful lives in a pluralistic democracy of Australia, because we acknowledge that (the) vast majority of Muslims for generations (are) getting on with their lives like anyone else does, that therefore somehow that’s turning a blind eye to extremism.

This is the real danger for the ABC – that it starts to jump at shadows, to overreact to the attacks on its credibility

It is about Islam, and it is also about the commercial struggles of the mainstream media. ABC boss Michelle Guthrie told a Senate estimates hearing recently that “at a time of major disruption in the media sector”, the ABC’s remit “cannot be understated”. The ABC has always insisted that it is not a “market failure” broadcaster, merely plugging gaps the commercial media neglect. Yet to some extent is it becoming such an institution, more vital than ever, as commercial media wobble in the digital age. And that is one reason why its haters are so relentless.

Regional newspapers, once the lifeblood of communities, have been decimated by staffing cuts. The ABC is attempting to fill the gap through recruiting more journalists outside the major cities. Guthrie also noted a renewed commitment to covering the arts, science and education “at a time when other media organisations are abandoning these key genres”.

The ABC’s role is changing. It is becoming more, not less, critical and overall it does an outstanding job. Note Four Corners’ forensic examination of the Lindt Café siege. Note the excellent War on Waste series, and the illuminating You Can’t Ask That. Note the daily coverage of local and national news, never perfect – no fast-moving newsroom is – but pretty darned good.

Guthrie was forced to – yet again – go down the Kafkaesque rabbit hole of defending the ABC’s response to Abdel-Magied’s post. And this is the real danger for the ABC –that it starts to jump at shadows, to overreact to the attacks on its credibility, to play the game by its enemies’ rules.

Abdel-Magied is not an ABC employee, she’s a contributor. I can’t see why the ABC had to disown her comment – it was her opinion, and not in truth an outrageous one. The most you could say was that it was insensitive on Anzac Day.

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But for the ABC’s hierarchy to “counsel her on the matter” is odd, as was Guthrie’s admission that “I spoke to her specifically” – why on earth did the managing director need to do that? The decision that she had to be counselled because she breached the broadcaster’s social media policy not to bring the ABC “into disrepute” is strange indeed, unless any criticism of Anzac Day automatically damages the ABC. That the program that Abdel-Magied fronted was axed just weeks after the “controversy” looked suspiciously like a panicked reaction, although the ABC denied it.

There’s an irony here, of course. Many in the broader media – not just the ABC – as well as community and political leaders, are struggling with how to discuss terrorism. The insistence that radical Islamism has nothing to do with Islam the religion is wearing thin, not just among One Nation supporters. The “all we need is love” response to terrorist attacks is platitudinous.

Some on the progressive side of politics do downplay the impact of terrorism. Krauss offered up the fridge analogy, and others claim that somehow terrorism isn’t as serious as, say, domestic violence, because more people are killed by their partners than in terrorist attacks. These are facile comparisons.

Australia has been exceptionally lucky, or well-prepared or both, with security agencies saying they have foiled 12 imminent attacks since September 2014. Asio has said it is watching about 400 high-priority targets. It is true that we must somehow learn to live in this new reality – while trying not to give up the freedoms that define us, a hideous dilemma – but to suggest that somehow this is a body count comparison insults us all.

All these issues need open and rigorous discussion, as sensitive and complicated as they are. Of course, we need to name the problem – Islamic extremism – but then what? What’s the real agenda here? Ban Muslim immigration as Pauline Hanson would have it? If there was ever an “Australian value” we need protecting, it is that we do not discriminate against people on the grounds of their race or religion. If we give up that principle, who are we?

To drum up public fear and anger against everyday Muslims, to assume that every Muslim – especially a refugee – is a potential terrorist or will breed a potential terrorist? Is that the goal? To make it even harder for intelligence agencies to work with Muslim communities to identify those at risk of radicalisation? To target the ABC for failing to toe this line?

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Anne Aly, a terrorism expert, a Muslim, and now a Labor MP, articulated the dilemma in the illuminating radio series, “The Islamic Republic of Australia” last year – broadcast on the ABC, of course. Moderate voices are being pushed out, fearful of being co-opted by the rabid.

“There’s (Muslim) people in Sydney who don’t vote, who live here, who are Australian and don’t vote because it’s haram (forbidden). So why are you living here? Go live somewhere else,” she said.

“If you were to say that, people will go, ‘how dare you? that’s like saying go home’… because the right wing say it so much, and because Reclaim Australia are saying it so much.”

That’s a critical point. Our public discourse is hopeless, helpless really. The virulent attacks against the ABC are, paradoxically, counter-productive because they are so extreme, so often disproportionate. The ABC is the number one scapegoat because it’s publicly funded. It deserves critique – everyone has an opinion on the ABC – but it does not deserve this distorted campaign against it, a campaign that is beginning to weaken our national broadcaster. Right at the time when it is needed more than ever.